PGA Tour, DP & LIV Golf Merger-How Does That Change the World of Golf?
Unscripted (Commentary)
By Keith Edmonds Ink Spot Contributing Writer
The golf world is still in total shock from the news announced on June 6, 2023, that the PGA Tour, the DP (European) World Tour, and LIV Golf agreed to merge business operations. Wow!! The deal was a shock to many of us golf fans simply because there has been so much controversy, surrounding the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour's total lack of acceptance of it since the new league was formed in 2022. Not many of the key people (players or execs) involved in either
league knew the deal was going to happen until it was announced, which I found equally as shocking!
At this point little is known about what the merger will mean for the future of golf, and questions have already arisen such as, does this mean more lucrative purses for PGA Tour winners? Will the PGA Tour shorten to 54-hole tournaments? Are ALL LIV players eligible for PGA Tour events, and are they even good enough to compete? These and many other questions must be answered before any type of calendar can be formed. In today’s edition of UNSCRIPTED I want to look at how the world of golf got here and how the ramifications of this merger will forever change the world of golf dramatically moving forward. Readers, how do YOU feel about this unprecedented move? Let’s just say… Not everyone is happy about what is occurring, including this writer of this piece!
The PGA Tour has long been a sport that has been looked at for only the rich and well-to-do to be a part of. It’s not a traditional sport in terms of how we look at the sports that hold our interest, like basketball, football, baseball, and hockey simply because its “affordability” is paramount. There aren’t sold-out arenas, hundreds of thousands of fans attending, or numerous commercial’s that bombard us with stars of the sport that we can identify with and purchase their products and/or memorabilia but rather, golf is a sport that most people take a casual interest in and rarely watch on television simply because we feel that we can find better ways to spend 4-5 hours of our day playing a sport as demanding as golf is.
That is until we started to see players such as Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer, and of course Tiger Woods when they began playing on the PGA Tour. Their skills were so advanced that we could not help but notice the way they dominated the sport during their various eras. Prize money started to rise, and the game began to elevate to a point where the “casual” fan started to take notice! Many of us started purchasing clubs and making our way to the golf course in record numbers trying to emulate what we’d witnessed on TV. We started identifying with the stars of the PGA Tour and pictured ourselves becoming one of them. (At least I did) and all was fine in our world until……
Along comes the LIV Tour (which stands for Roman number 54) created by former PGA Tour #1 Greg Norman who started to entice the stars of the PGA with unheard of earnings just to get them to join their tour and play in the events. Players from the PGA could not resist the lure of millions of dollars being thrown at them by this Saudi-backed league and started migrating towards their 10 (ten) listed tour events. It’s interesting in that the subtle changes that LIV used to attract players were vastly different to the PGA format and players were immediately intrigued! Changes such as: 54-hole format, shot-gun starts for events, being allowed to wear shorts, or even listening to music being played during events made players stand up and take a look! What’s next? Golf carts? Nah…. well, maybe!
It became a rivalry that the PGA Tour had to address as their long-time stars began to voice their opinions and as I mentioned before, left the tour, and changed leagues for more (much more) money. (Tiger Woods was reportedly offered somewhere near three hundred million just to defect from the PGA Tour to the LIV. Which he turned down!) Dissension between the tours was starting to rear its ugly head and rather than continue to compete and war against each other, the PGA and LIV decided to merge and form a “super tour” (for lack of a better way of describing it) “Super” in terms of players being able to compete on BOTH tours for ridiculous monies! The feeling is that this will give the players, fans, and those of us that have attempted to play this game on a remedial level something more relatable to watch and be a part of. Not sure I agree with this approach and here’s why… Traditionalists like me should not be forced to watch players from this upstart league compete with our more established players simply because money is just handed to them. Where does the “rite of passage” come into play for the newbies?
When stars of the PGA Tour (namely, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, and Kevin Na) rescinded their tour cards to join LIV it was then that the war was on! Johnson, who initially distanced himself from the new LIV Golf series saying he was "committed to the PGA Tour'' signed to LIV Golf for a reported $150million saying, "I don't want to play for the rest of my life, and this gives me an opportunity to do what I want to do." Can you blame him? What would most people do in that situation? The details have yet to be worked out regarding how all of this will work, but it will be fascinating to see how it will unfold. Will more stars speak out in favor or opposition of this move? Will some of the more “established” stars begin thinking about starting their OWN league? Will Tiger Woods and some of the members of his cliché like LeBron James, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan start their own BLACK PGA Tour? As the great Notorious B.I.G. once said “Mo money, Mo’ problems!” This is far from over folks!